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Identifying the exposure of two subsistence villages in Alaska to climate change using traditional ecological knowledge

Climatic Change (2013) 121: 285.

Jonathan Andrew Ignatowski and Jon Rosales

Abstract

Dramatic climatic change in the Arctic elevates the importance of determining the risk of exposure for people living in vulnerable areas and developing effective adaptation programs. (Smith) Climate change assessment reports are valuable, and often definitive, sources of information for decision makers when constructing adaptation plans, yet the scope of these reports is too coarse to identify site-specific exposure to the impacts of climate change and adaptation needs. Subsistence hunters and gatherers in the Arctic are valuable knowledge holders of climate-related change in their area. Incorporating both their traditional ecological knowledge and information found in climate science assessment reports can offer adaption planners a deeper understanding of exposure to climate change and local adaptation needs. In this study, we compare information found in assessment reports of climate change in the Arctic with what we have learned from the Alaskans Sharing Indigenous Knowledge project from 2009 to 2012, a research project documenting traditional ecological knowledge in two Native villages in Alaska, Savoonga and Shaktoolik.1 Content analysis of the interviews with hunters and gatherers reveal the site-specific impacts of climate change affecting these two villages. We find that their traditional ecological knowledge is complimentary and largely corroborates the climate science found in assessment reports. Traditional ecological knowledge, however, is more current to the social and local conditions of the villages, and presents a more unified social and biophysical portrayal of the impacts of climate change. If taken together, these two forms of knowledge can focus adaptation planning on the pertinent needs of the communities in question.1

Climate Change in the Arctic

Climate change is more pronounced in the Arctic than any other region, warming at twice the rate as the rest of the planet [1]. As a result, dramatic and sustained ecosystem change in the Pacific Arctic is being called the “new normal” [2] to contend with for decision makers and residents of this region. We cannot assume, however, all elements of climate change in this rapidly changing region are obvious and/or disruptive to its residents. Climate change risks are experienced unequally and are often location-specific [3] and indigenous communities in Alaska are particularly vulnerable [4]. It is therefore instructive for decision makers working on climate change adaptation to determine the perceptions of risk held by indigenous people living in this rapidly transforming region. It is also important to identify the particular adaptation needs of indigenous peoples and to assess climate change risk from their perspective.

Climate change is more pronounced in the Arctic than any other region, warming at twice the rate as the rest of the planet [1]. As a result, dramatic and sustained ecosystem change in the Pacific Arctic is being called the “new normal” [2] to contend with for decision makers and residents of this region. We cannot assume, however, all elements of climate change in this rapidly changing region are obvious and/or disruptive to its residents. Climate change risks are experienced unequally and are often location-specific [3] and indigenous communities in Alaska are particularly vulnerable [4]. It is therefore instructive for decision makers working on climate change adaptation to determine the perceptions of risk held by indigenous people living in this rapidly transforming region. It is also important to identify the particular adaptation needs of indigenous peoples and to assess climate change risk from their perspective.

Community-Based Adaptation

An egg

Photo: Jonathan Ignatowski

To its practitioners, CBA seeks to empower high-risk, poor, and marginalized communities that have contributed the least to climate change to plan for its impacts [34–36]. The IPCC concludes that the intent of CBA is “to foster active participation in collecting information that is rooted in the communities and enables affected people to participate in their own assessment of risk and identify responses that can enhance resilience by strengthening social-institutional measures including social relations” [3] (p. 321). In other words, CBA directly allows at risk people being affected by climate change to communicate how they perceive its risks and to determine adaptation practices [37]. While CBA focuses on the local context of climate change [3], it is also a political statement of the necessity, and value, of including community voices in their own development efforts [37]. An underlying assumption with CBA initiatives is that people know their local risks and vulnerabilities better than non-locals; in this case, residents of Savoonga and Shaktoolik are capable of determining what climatic changes are more obvious and disruptive to them than others. At the same time CBA recognizes that broader scaled knowledge, such as regional climate modeling, is also needed to get a full picture of vulnerabilities and risks [37]. For greater impact, CBA initiatives should be scaled-up and communicated to decision makers, and scaled-out by expanding to larger regions [34].

Risk Assessment

Climate risk management, the incorporation of climate change information into decision making to reduce climate change risks [41], is an emerging field that begins with assessment of risk. Mercer et al. [6] develop a four-step process “for integrating indigenous and scientific knowledge” for risk reduction—community engagement, identification of vulnerabilities, identifying indigenous and scientific strategies for risk reduction, and develop

It is obvious to TEK holders in both villages that storms have changed over the last 20 years, in fact the more intense storms have, as one respondent from Shaktoolik put it, “Increased awareness of change in general.” This commonality between the two villages is not surprising since the large fall storms encompass the entire Bering Sea region and these two villages are only 280 miles apart. In particular, an increase in storm intensity is highly obvious in Shaktoolik and moderately obvious in Savoonga, but in both villages larger fall storms are increasingly disruptive to their lives

Savoonga is a federally recognized Siberian Yupik village on the northern coast of St. Lawrence Island in the Bering Sea. The island itself has been occupied for at least 2,000 years and the city of Savoonga was established in 1969.

Today 95% of the 650 village members are native and most speak both English and Siberian Yupik. Traditional subsistence culture is of utmost importance to the people of Savoonga. The culture is said to be an extension of the land and sea with intricate and ancient rituals revolving around walrus and whale hunting.

Rosales J, Montan J (2010) Citizen science as an organizing principle for the environmental work of the local government in the Adirondack region. Adiron J Environ Stud 16.1 http://www.ajes.org/v16/rosal2010.php Accessed 21 November 2012